AMELIA WENT TO HER FIRST AIR MEET just days after arriving in California. Flying was all the rage on the West Coast, and new airfields were opening almost every week.
There were twenty of them in the Los Angeles area alone, and there was always something going on there—plane races, stunt flying, wing walking.
“I remember that first meet,” Amelia wrote years later. “The sky was blue and the flying conditions were perfect. . . . The planes streaked overhead like silver birds, gleaming in the sunlight.”
Amelia turned to her father, who had come along with her. “Dad, you know, I think I’d like to fly.”
Edwin was not enthusiastic about the idea. But she dragged him under the rope that bordered the field for a closer look at the planes. She had dozens of questions. But suddenly she felt too shy to ask them herself.
“Dad,” she said, pointing to a young man in uniform, “ask that officer how long it takes to [learn to] fly.”
Edwin dutifully headed off to speak with the pilot and soon returned with the answer. “The average seems to be from five to ten hours.”
Amelia just nodded, but “in her bones,” she felt that “a [flight] would come soon.”
Danger!
It wasn’t safe to fly an airplane in 1920. Things always went wrong. “Never forget that the engine may stop in mid-air,” read one pilots’ manual. “At all times keep this in mind.”
In May of that year, the United States Post Office hired the first forty pilots ever to deliver airmail. By year’s end, fifteen of those pilots had died in crashes caused by faulty motors. “In those days the motor was not what it is today,” wrote one pilot. “It would drop out without warning . . . and one would simply throw in one’s hand; there was no hope of salvation.”
But the danger was part of flying’s magic in those days. The narrow escapes and near misses made the sport daring and exciting. “The danger,” admitted Amelia, “made it all the more thrilling.”
She was right. The very next day, she returned to the airfield because Edwin had arranged a trial flight. “I am sure he thought one ride would be enough for me,” she later wrote, “and he might as well act to cure me promptly.”
A pilot stepped forward and shook their hands. “A good day to go up,” he said pleasantly. Then he pointed to another flier. “He’ll go up with us.”
“Why?” asked Amelia.
The pilots exchanged grins. “I understood instantly,” she said. “I was a girl—a nervous lady. I might jump out. There needed to be somebody to grab my ankles as I went over.” She told the fliers she wasn’t afraid, but they refused to listen. “I was not allowed to sit alone in the front cockpit.”
None of that mattered once the plane left the runway. “I was surprised to be able to see the ocean after a few moments of climbing . . . then the Hollywood Hills seemed to peep over the edge of the cockpit . . . and I knew what I wanted to do with my life. . . . I knew I myself had to fly.”
“I think I’d like to learn to fly,” Amelia told her family that evening. She tried to sound casual, “knowing full well I’d die if I didn’t.”
“Not a bad idea,” replied Edwin, just as casually. “When do you start?”
Amelia wasn’t sure. She needed to do a bit of investigating first. “I told him I’d let him know shortly.”
Edwin nodded, seemingly unconcerned. “I hadn’t thought she actually meant it,” he later said. So days later, when he learned she had signed up for lessons, he was surprised. In hopes of putting her off the idea, he told her he couldn’t afford them. But Amelia was determined. She found a job in the mailroom of the local telephone company to pay for the lessons herself. What could Edwin do? “I let her fly,” he said.
Amelia decided to take flying lessons at Kinner Field, where there was a female pilot. “I felt I should be less self-conscious taking lessons [from a woman],” she said.
Who was that woman?
Twenty-four-year-old Neta Snook, the only female flier in Southern California, who was in the business of carrying passengers and giving lessons.
Amelia’s Teacher
Only five feet tall, Neta Snook had a personality as bright as her red hair. As a child she was fascinated by airplanes, and later she took any job she could to pay for her flying lessons. Unable to bulldoze her way into the United States Air Force when war broke out in 1917 (she was rejected because she was a woman), she accepted a job as an airplane mechanic. After the war, she bought a wrecked Canuck (seen behind her) and rebuilt its engine. She loaded the plane onto a truck, drove it to a nearby pasture, assembled it and took off. She barnstormed her way across the country, charging passengers fifteen dollars for a fifteen-minute ride. After arriving in Los Angeles, she started her own business at Kinner Field, flying passengers, doing aerial advertising and teaching would-be fliers.
Neta Snook posing with her Canuck. (picture credit 8.1)
Neta would never forget the first time she laid eyes on Amelia. She had just finished a long day of flying sightseers over Los Angeles when she noticed a white-gloved young woman heading her way. “More silly people with silly questions,” thought Neta.
But the young woman was anything but silly. “I’m Amelia Earhart,” she said in a straightforward manner, “and I want to learn to fly. Will you teach me?”
Yes, Neta replied, for a dollar a minute, and she expected to be paid after each lesson.
Amelia blanched. She didn’t have that much money. Would Neta agree to monthly payments?
Neta would. From then on, recalled Amelia, “I began hopping about on credit with her.”
A Short Cut
One Saturday morning, as Amelia walked to the airfield (in order to save the bus fare), a friendly motorist and his small daughter offered her a ride.
“What do you do?” asked the little girl as they bumped along the road.
“I am learning to be a pilot,” replied Amelia.
The little girl looked their passenger up and down. “But you don’t look like an aviatrix,” she finally said. “You have long hair.”
The girl’s words gave Amelia an idea. That night she began cutting her hair—a little each evening so as not to shock her mother—until it was short. After that, Amelia carefully curled her blond bob, creating such a natural, tousled look that no one thought she ever touched it. This hairdo, which she wore for the rest of her life, became part of her signature look.
On the day of Amelia’s first lesson—January 3, 1921—she arrived at the airfield wearing khaki pants and boots along with a colorful scarf tied jauntily around her neck. “I began dressing the part of the pilot,” she admitted. She even bought herself a knee-length leather jacket, which she slept in for several nights to give it a used look. Always the student, she also had a book about aerodynamics tucked under her arm. “I soon became accustomed to seeing her with a book,” recalled Neta. “She always carried one.”
This rare photograph shows the student Amelia in the front cockpit of Neta Snook’s dual-control Canuck. (picture credit 8.2)
Neta began the lesson by briefly explaining the basics of flight. Then, after tossing a helmet and a pair of goggles at Amelia, she told her to climb into the front cockpit of the rebuilt World War I Canuck that Neta had bought surplus.
The Canuck had two open cockpits. In each was a matching set of controls consisting of a rudder bar and a stick. As the instructor, Neta sat in the back cockpit. Amelia, who sat in the front seat, then duplicated whatever she did in the way of steering. Since the controls in the front cockpit were connected to those in the back, the teacher could quickly correct any mistake made by the student.
A Few Flying Lessons from Amelia
Amelia gave this advice to would-be fliers in her 1932 book, The Fun of It:
One of the first things a student learns in flying is that he turns by pushing a rudder bar the way he wants to go. When he turns, he must bank or tip the wings at the same time. Why? Because if he doesn’t, the plane will skid in exactly the same way a car does when it whirls too fast around a level corner.
The stick, as the name implies, extends from the floor of the cockpit. It is a lever by means of which the pilot can push the nose of the plane up or down. It also tips the wings. By pushing it to the left, the left wing is depressed, and vice versa.
The rudder bar, upon which one’s feet rest, simply turns the nose of the ship left or right, a movement to be coordinated with the action of the stick. Today, by the way, especially in larger planes, a wheel much like the steering wheel of a car is used instead of the simple stick.
In addition to the stick and the rudder, the novice must be familiar with certain instruments placed before his eyes. . . . These instruments include a compass for direction, as well as others that show speed through the air, height above ground, revolutions per minute of the motor, and pressure and temperature of oil.
Once the student learns the basics of keeping the plane level, turning and landing, he is taught the fundamental stunts. These are of slips, stalls, and spins. . . . What are their average uses? Well, side slips sometimes come in handy in landing in a short field; stalls and spins in knowing what to avoid in normal flying. A vertical bank is necessary in very short turns, and loops and barrel rolls and their relatives and friends are mostly for fun.
Stunting may be an art if perfected and practiced by those who have the talent. . . . It should be understood that this precision flying is like tightrope walking—it only looks easy.
Amelia then included two pages of maneuvers that explained exactly how each stunt was performed.
During her first lesson, Amelia merely learned to taxi. But by February, she had logged four hours in the air. “She was wholly confident,” recalled Neta. “She would just take over and do it.”
But confidence could not replace skill, and Amelia made lots of mistakes. “Why do you persist in leveling off so high above the ground?” Neta asked one day in May about Amelia’s landing. “I had to shove the plane’s nose down. . . . Didn’t you notice?”
Amelia shook her head. “I guess I was just daydreaming,” she replied.
“Her in-flight daydreaming distressed me,” Neta said later. “A good pilot’s mind should be focused on flying. I decided then that for all her training, she was still very much a beginner.”
The “beginner” made other, more dangerous mistakes. One day during an instruction flight, Amelia suddenly turned the plane toward Long Beach, some sixty miles away. Neta knew immediately where her student was headed, and she doubted the plane could make that long a flight unless the fuel tanks had been topped off. Cutting the plane’s throttle, she yelled, “Did you check [the fuel] personally?”
Amelia shook her head. “Mr. Kinner [owner of the airfield] always keeps it full.”
Neta paled. Good pilots, she knew, always checked their own fuel level. Fearing that she would soon hear the plane sputtering, out of gas, Neta took the controls and grimly turned the plane around.
When they landed back at the airfield, a relieved Bert Kinner hurried out to the runway. He told them the plane was almost on empty. “I didn’t fill it last night because the fuel tanker never arrived,” he explained.
Neta was furious. “Not for the first time, I wondered if I had misjudged her ability.”
Even when Amelia wasn’t flying, there was always something to do at the airstrip. Hangars needed to be cleaned. Planes needed to be repaired. Recalled Amelia, “We shellacked the canvas wings and replaced struts . . . and when there was enough gasoline . . . took turns cruising over the bay.” When there wasn’t enough gas (and their work was all done), the airfield crowd huddled in the shade of the tin-roofed office to “talk airplanes.” Occasionally, recalled Amelia, a plane landed, “causing clouds of dust on the dirt runway.”
After only six months of flying lessons, Amelia decided “life would be incomplete unless I owned my own plane.” The one she wanted was small, fast and painted bright yellow. Built by airstrip owner Bert Kinner, it took off more quickly, climbed more steeply and was faster and easier to handle than Neta’s Canuck.
But Neta was worried. “That plane flew like a leaf,” she recalled. It was much too difficult for an inexperienced flier to control.
Neta Snook and Amelia in front of the Kinner Airster—“the prettiest plane I [have] ever seen,” Amelia gushed. As for Neta, she claimed the Airster “didn’t have any stability.” (picture credit 8.3)
Amelia’s mind, however, was made up. She offered Bert Kinner the little bit of money she had saved by working at the telephone company. “I was still a long way from wiping out the balance owed of $2000 though,” she admitted. So she borrowed all her sister’s savings, and her mother gave her the rest. As for Edwin Earhart, he opposed the purchase. Still, “it was our money to do with as we wished,” recalled Muriel, “and we wished to give Amelia wings.”
Just before her twenty-fourth birthday, in July 1921, Amelia climbed into her brand-new Kinner Canary (named because of its color) and took the controls. Neta—who had volunteered to teach Amelia to fly the plane for free—was also along. But immediately on takeoff the plane’s third cylinder failed. Desperately, Amelia tried to pull up over a stand of trees, but she pulled up too fast. The plane crashed into the trees, breaking its undercarriage and propeller.
Neta crawled out of the wreckage, hoping against hope that Amelia wasn’t hurt.
She wasn’t. She was standing next to the plane, grinning and powdering her nose. “We have to look nice [if] reporters arrive,” she said.
“Even in those early years, Amelia understood the importance of publicity and of looking good,” Neta later wrote.
Once the plane had been fixed, Amelia changed instructors, and Neta faded out of the picture. Amelia’s new teacher, an ex–army pilot named John Montijo, taught her stunt flying—dives, tailspins, loops and barrel rolls. These tricks, Amelia admitted, were not so useful. “I learned them,” she said, “mostly for fun.”
In December of that year, Amelia took the flying test for a National Aeronautic Association license. It wasn’t her finest flight. “One of the shock absorbers broke causing the wing to sag just as I was leaving the ground,” she admitted. “I also made a thoroughly rotten landing.” Still, her performance was good enough to pass.
Amelia’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. (picture credit 8.4)
Now she began appearing on the exhibition circuit, doing stunt flying. She didn’t enjoy it. “I felt like a clown,” she confessed. What she really wanted was to be “alone and aloft.” But airplanes were expensive to take care of, and exhibitions provided the money for fuel and repairs.
Soon her name began to appear regularly in the local papers, with headlines such as:
PACIFIC COAST LADIES’ DERBY, AN EXHIBITION BY MISS AMELIA EARHART!
A LADY’S PLANE AS WELL AS A MAN’S—READ WHAT MISS EARHART HAS TO SAY ABOUT A KINNER AIRSTER.
AIR STUDENT—AVIATRIX TO “DROP IN” FOR STUDY
“I don’t crave publicity,” Amelia told one reporter.
But, corrected her sister, Muriel, she “never objected to it.”
By October 1922, Amelia felt so confident in her flying skills that she decided to see how high her plane could climb. While at an air meet at Rogers Field outside Los Angeles, she took off in her Kinner Canary and winged out of sight. “It was a good day,” she later wrote, “and I climbed easily for about 13,000 feet. Then I began to have trouble . . . a terrific vibration and knocking started. There wasn’t anything to do but come down, although I was still climbing fifty feet a minute.”
Once she was back on the ground, officials read the plane’s sealed barograph (an instrument that records altitude). She had climbed to 14,000 feet, setting a new women’s altitude record.
The following spring, she took and passed the flight test to receive a license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, an international aviation organization. She was only the sixteenth woman in the world to receive one.
Amelia Earhart was making a name for herself.
But family demands soon grounded her. Her parents (whose relationship had remained rocky even after Edwin had stopped drinking) were divorced in the summer of 1924. Amelia agreed to travel east with her mother to Boston, where Muriel was now studying. Selling her beloved plane, Amelia bought a sporty yellow car for the trip. Then mother and daughter headed east. “I still didn’t think of my flying as a means to anything but having fun,” Amelia admitted, “so I was not entirely devastated.”
But what could she do to make a living?
Once again she considered medical school. Leaving her mother in Boston, Amelia returned to Columbia University. She took a few courses—physics and algebra—but school no longer inspired her. By the summer of 1925 she was back in Boston and looking for work. Her search brought her to Denison House.
Denison House, one of the oldest settlement houses in the country, helped new immigrants by providing food, medical care and English classes. Amelia had no background in social work. She was simply looking for a part-time job. But head worker Marion Perkins liked “her personality and confidence in herself so much that I gave her a position . . . without asking much about her training.”
Amelia loved every busy minute of her days at Denison House. She formed girls’ clubs, arranged music lessons, taught English and even created a girls’ basketball team. “The 1926 season was fine,” wrote Amelia, “having taken on and beaten a New York City team from Greenwich Settlement House.”
She still yearned to fly, but she did not earn enough at Denison House to buy another airplane. Instead, she made friends with local pilots and joined the Boston chapter of the National Aeronautic Association.
A Little Romance
While living in California, the Earharts took in boarders to help make ends meet. One of them was a tall, dark engineering student named Sam Chapman. He and Amelia soon began playing tennis together, going to the theater and spending evenings at home discussing books.
Sam was obviously more serious about the relationship than Amelia. He followed her east when she moved to Boston in 1924, and he repeatedly begged her to marry him. Amelia eventually agreed.
But did she ever really intend to marry him?
Probably not.
Marriage, she said, was like “living the life of a domestic robot.” “I don’t want to marry Sam,” she confided to her sister. “I don’t want to marry anyone.”
What did she want?
“To do what makes me happiest,” she declared, “no matter what other people say.”
Still, they were engaged until 1928, when Amelia finally broke it off. Sam would remain a close friend for the rest of her life.
Sam Chapman (far right) and Amelia (second from right), photographed on the Earharts’ sofa in 1922, had a comfortable relationship. Kind and considerate, Sam was deeply in love with Amelia. He patiently waited (for years!) for her to give up her career plans and settle down to a traditional life as wife and mother.
She never did. (picture credit 8.5)
In September of 1927, Amelia went to a nearby airstrip to watch the leading woman stunt flyer, Thea Rasche, demonstrate her skills. But during her performance, Rasche’s engine conked out. The aviatrix tried to restart the engine, but the motor was dead. So Rasche put the plane into a glide, crashing into a swamp next to the runway. Rasche was shaken but uninjured.
“See?” some people in the crowd grumbled. “Women shouldn’t be allowed to fly.”
“They can’t handle mechanical equipment,” said others.
Their comments infuriated Amelia. “I decided I would show them,” she said. Racing to the hangar, she hopped into one of the field’s Waco 10s and amazed the crowd with what a newspaper later called “an excellent demonstration of flying.” She looped the loop, pitched and rolled.
Why had she done it?
“Miss Earhart wanted to prove that . . . women are quite as capable pilots as men, and quite as daring,” the Boston Globe reported. She had also put herself in the public eye.
Not long afterward, the telephone at Denison House rang.
“I’m too busy to answer just now,” Amelia said when she was told the call was for her. “Ask whoever it is to call again later.”
“But he says it’s important,” insisted the messenger.
Grudgingly, Amelia went to the phone.
“You don’t know me,” said the man’s voice on the other end, but “would you be interested in doing something for aviation which might be dangerous?”
What was this hazardous undertaking? Amelia asked.
But the man refused to tell her . . . yet.
The children of Denison House surround Amelia at the wheel of the sporty yellow car she had bought in 1924. (picture credit 8.6)